CeMENT: Mentoring for Junior Faculty
CSWEP has received funding from the American Economic Association to continue its successful series of mentoring workshops to help junior economists overcome the tenure hurdle, with a special focus on addressing the unique challenges that women face at the beginning of their careers. There will be a regional Mentoring event in 2011 and a national event in 2012. Watch this page for upcoming announcements of deadlines!
The national workshops typically consists of a two-day program and like the regionals, participants will be arranged into small groups based on their research area and will interact with each other and with senior (tenured) faculty mentors. The workshop focuses around small group interaction, where group members and mentors discuss and offer feedback on the participants’ research. In addition, in the past we have offered a number of topic-oriented, how-to sessions. Possible topics are below:
- How to write a grant
- How to write a tenure statement
- How to attend a conference and network
- How to revise a paper (referees and editors)
- How to balance work and family
- How to develop a tenure case
Here's what a few participants had to say about their experiences:
Junior faculty benefit from the CeMENT workship in many ways. First, the content of the sessions and reference materials provided are very helpful, particularly in the area of research. Second, the workshop provides many opportunities to meet successful people, particularly women. Junior women can learn a lot from senior women in a variety of areas -- everything from how to handle a negative referee's report to the suggestion of hiring a cleaning service to free up some time in our lives! Third, the workshop provides junior faculty with an instant support group of people with similar research and teaching interests. Members of my research group send e-mails on a monthly basis, and we are planning sessions for two future meetings. —Lisa Jepson at University of Northern Iowa.
What aspect of the workshop was most beneficial to you? 1. Tips! I have lists of things that I should be saving for my tenure file, ways to get my name out there, strategies that will help me get published, get tenure, and stay sane in the process. 2. The biggest realization for me is that although there is uncertainty surrounding tenure requirements, I need to ask questions. Within days of the conference, I was already discussing what I need to do with other members of my department. Everyone should be so lucky as to participate in this conference. It's an eye-opening and extremely positive experience. —Gwendolyn Alexander at Fordham.
The most beneficial aspect [of the workshop] was the nature of the answers I received from the senior faculty members. There was no circumventing the questions. For instance, if I asked, how many hours I should spend on doing such and such. The answer was x hours, not "well, that differs from person to person, do what you are most comfortable with......." In other words, there were real solutions to all the problems. This workshop was probably the most important thing that has happened in my career so far (okay, I'm not tenured yet). I consult the notes that I took during the workshop over and over again. —Tinni Sen at VMI.
We are pleased and excited to continue CSWEP's tradition of mentoring junior faculty. We hope you will apply, and look forward to seeing you at one of our workshops!
